#62 💸 The QUINTESSENCE of a Monday 🙂

In brief 🩲

• Journal: The elusive Mr Allardice
• Practical: What are Mondays even for?
• Art: The cutesy pictographs we can’t do without

From the journal 📖

I used to be a high school English teacher, and from time to time I still run into former students. Recently at a housewarming for our taekwondo instructors, Stella and Eisa, my partner Vic started chatting to Grace, now in her twenties, who I’d taught English in her first year of high school. Grace had gone around the room asking people if I was indeed “Mr Allardice”, the only name she knew me by. This confused most of the people in the room, friends from my taekwondo club who mostly only know me by my first name. They’d all answered something like “That’s just Richard.” Finally Grace found Vic, someone who knows my full name.

I remember Grace. She was a remarkable bright spark who had written a novel at age 12. We chatted about high school, and Grace was surprised to hear that when I was her teacher it was my first year in the game. Grace had assumed that I was already old and wise at the time. (I was thirty, so... neither.)

“Well it’s not something I would just come out and say to my students,” I said. “Hi everyone! I’ll be your teacher for the year. Just so you know: I’ve never actually done this before.”

Grace’s uncle, who was listening to the conversation, agreed. “That would be fatal,” he said, chuckling.